The Gift of Life

In response to all the emails and calls we've received (and I thank you!), here's the update regarding David's pending bone marrow procedure. "Olga" from the marrow center in San Antonio called us at 1:30 this morning (Friday, 4:30pm CST) to give us an update on the itinerary. As it stands, the center will fly David to Austin on February 16th arriving there on the 17th. He is scheduled to have a physical on the morning of the 18th. After his physical clearance, he will begin filgrastim injections on February 28th. Injections will follow on the 29th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. These injections help move more blood-forming cells from his bone marrow to his bloodstream. The actual donation will take place in San Antonio on March 3rd. The patient will also begin a ten day regimen of preparing for the transplant after David's physical is processed. David is donating his cells through a process called aspheresis instead of extracting the marrow from his spine. It's sort of like dialysis. They will take his blood from his arm, run it through a machine and harvest what they need from it and feed it back into him. The procedure will take several hours and be performed on an outpatient basis. Voila. He will then be put on a plane back to Doha the very next day on March 4th. Chevron Phillips has opted out to give David the leave needed to make this life saving donation. Not a problem, he will use three weeks of his vacation. I was sort of taken aback by their decision. I really thought that they would step up to the plate seizing this moment of good will and using it for P.R. within their own company. Se la vie'. We feel like "The Gift of Life" is meant for our family as well as the 28 year old's family. It gives us a sense of renewal to be able to do this for someone. Certainly not a sacrifice, but an honor.